The Time Capsule
by Juliana Brandagamba
Summary: [PROBABLY COMPLETE] Mrs Hudson's investigations into what is in the untouched loft of 221 Baker Street turn rather intriguing when she finds a mysterious old box from the Victorian era containing some surprising items. Was Sherlock's mind-palace construction as fictional as he might have thought?
1. The Loft

There had been a lot of clunking in 221 Baker Street that morning, and John was beginning to become worried. He had heard Mrs Hudson go upstairs – she had asked on her way up whether he wanted a cup of tea (he had declined politely, but was beginning to wish he hadn't). Then she had proceeded to stay upstairs all morning, and made this racket whilst doing so. He decided she must be doing some form of DIY, and he rather hoped it wasn't in his bedroom, considering the amount of murmured curses that came to him through the ceiling. No – if he stood directly underneath the noises he found himself beneath the upstairs landing, where, from what he could hear, he guessed that she was doing something to the ceiling.

Unusually, Sherlock was out that day and he was in, because Sherlock had been made to visit his parents. ( _Made_ was quite the right word, because he didn't like going to see his parents, but even Mycroft had insisted somewhat smugly – smugly, that is, until Sherlock had informed him that he was invited too.) No doubt Sherlock would have guessed in an instant what Mrs H was up to. But he wasn't there, and John was getting curious, so he got up from his armchair and decided to go and investigate.

When he clambered onto the upstairs landing just outside his bedroom, he found Mrs Hudson balanced unsteadily on a ladder and trying, it seemed, to drill through the ceiling, which wasn't quite what he had expected. She didn't notice him at first, and so he waited until she switched the drill off for a moment before greeting her and asking what was going on.

'Oh, hello, John.' Mrs Hudson turned round and caught sight of him through a pair of enormous goggles (John didn't ask where she had got them from). On taking them off she realised that she had managed to shower the poor doctor with bits of paint and plaster, and that he now resembled an explosion in a flour mill. 'Oh, gosh, sorry! Hang on, let me brush that off…' And she swiped vigorously at him, brushing the white flaky bits onto the fragments of the _Times_ that covered the landing carpet.

'Mrs Hudson…' John began. 'What… on Earth… are you up to?'

'Ah!' And Mrs Hudson looked excited. She bent over and picked up a piece of paper. 'I found these the other day. A sketch of this house. A plan, I mean.'

John looked, and saw that the paper showed an old pencil drawing of each floor of 221 Baker Street. It was fascinating enough, but he couldn't work out why that merited drilling through the ceiling.

'And look.' Mrs Hudson gently flipped the paper over. 'Apparently 221 used to have – still has – a loft. They call it an attic on the plan, but I think it was a loft. The hatch had been painted over and hidden, but I've managed to uncover it.' She pointed to the ceiling, where there was now a lack of paint and the outline of a loft hatch. 'The hatch had become stuck and so I'm trying to get through it.'

John raised one eyebrow and wondered why Mrs Hudson was excited about a loft. 'But what are you expecting to find up there? Treasure?'

'Well, maybe,' said Mrs Hudson enigmatically. 'I've heard that previous occupants of this house have included some wealthy and some interesting gentlemen and ladies. They told me when I bought it that it had a fascinating history.'

Now John was a little more interested. 'I can help you, if you like. See if I can get the hatch open now.'

Mrs Hudson nodded, and stepped to one side to let him scale the ladder. John leant his shoulders against the hatch, his head bowed and grazing the ceiling, and pushed upwards; then he nearly fell backwards as the hatch came unstuck and flew into the loft.

'I'm in,' he said a little pointlessly. 'D'you want to grab a torch? It's dark up here and I don't imagine there's a light switch.'

A few minutes later they rendezvoused on the landing, Mrs Hudson clutching a bright torch and John in scruffy clothes that could get as dusty as they liked. Then they both scaled the ladder and clambered into the loft.

It was a dark and drafty little space, smelling of dust but not damp; and they were surprised to find a number of items: a couple of boxes containing a smart set of silverware and crockery that must have been at least a hundred years old; an ancient slice of wedding cake that had 1920 on the label, alongside two names that John couldn't quite make out; and a curious little wood and metal chest that didn't seem to want to open, and so he took it down the ladder into the proper light, Mrs Hudson following with the silverware, which she had taken a fancy to (but which needed dusting before she used it).

It resembled a large jewellery box, but when John shook it a little he could hear little rattling inside it, though it seemed that there might be papers in there. In the light he saw that there was a small key attached to the underside of the box, and so he took it downstairs into the living room of 221B and made to open it; that was when Sherlock returned, and looked curiously at the box on the coffee-table.

'Late Victorian, belonging to a woman who liked to think she was richer than she was,' he said vaguely. 'Did Mrs Hudson find it in the loft?'

'You knew she'd been in the loft?' John asked in surprise.

'No,' Sherlock replied. 'I saw that you were covered in ceiling-plaster from upstairs and deduced that Mrs Hudson had been looking at the house plans that had been in her possession. I knew there was a loft. I didn't think there would be anything of interest in it.'

His disjointed statements only confused John more; after he had spoken however John said: 'But there is this. This is quite interesting.'

'A jewellery box.'

'It has papers in.'

'Letters, then. If it's a woman's. Women keep letters. Photographs as well, perhaps.'

And Sherlock, disinterested, went to sit in his armchair, clutching a copy of the day's newspaper, which he read in a desultory fashion: John knew that he often did this when there was a lack of cases for him to solve, just in case he might chance upon some interesting morsel that he had not heard about, or, in the agony aunt column, a problem that was more than it seemed at first glance; sometimes he read that column just to amuse himself by deducing things about the people who wrote in.

Just then there was a click as John got into the box, and the lid swung upon, unleashing a cloud of dust that had sat on the top for however many years – more than a hundred, if "late Victorian" was correct. He peered into the box, with Mrs Hudson looking over his shoulder, and then furrowed his brow as he chanced upon the first items in the box: a slender and richly decorated, though somewhat blackened, pipe, and a small pot of tobacco that was half empty.

John passed the pipe first to Mrs Hudson, who was now almost overexcited, and then to Sherlock, who looked mildly distracted for a moment before saying: 'A regular, perhaps too regular, smoker. He used various varieties of tobacco – the one in that pot is just one of them. That one is a common Victorian pipe tobacco. There are residues of rarer, even foreign, ones on the pipe. The blackening shows that he used it often. It was perhaps his only pipe – he was either attached to it, or his finances were such that he could not risk buying a new one.'

'So why did he put it in a box in the loft?' asked John at length.

'I don't think he did. I keep telling you – that's a woman's jewellery box. And women tend to be sentimental. A wife, a daughter or a friend, I imagine. I expect this gentleman died, and his relatives and friends could not bear to get rid of his possessions, but could not face them either.'

He studied the pipe for a moment more, and then handed it back to John, before saying unexpectedly, 'It's rather a nice pipe. I had fantasies of being a Victorian gentleman and smoking a pipe a bit like that.'

'When you were little, you mean?' asked Mrs Hudson.

'When you had given up wanting to be a pirate?' asked John.

'When I was at university,' Sherlock replied vaguely, before settling back down in his seat.

'There might be clues in here as to who this gentleman was,' John commented, and lifted the tobacco-pot carefully from the box to reveal the layer of assorted papers. The first was a sheet that was to protect the others from the tobacco-ash. Underneath it was a small sepia photograph that was not of great quality, but which, when John lifted it to the light, revealed itself to be singularly spectacular.

'Good God,' John muttered involuntarily, looking astonished. His hands began to shake as he flipped the photograph over to reveal, in spidery handwriting that he could have sworn he recognised, names that he knew very well indeed:

 _Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson in 221B, Baker Street._

'Good God,' John said again.

Now Sherlock was more than interested; he took the photo a little roughly from his friend's hands, and inspected it. It appeared to show two Victorian gentlemen in front of the fireplace in the very room they were in: two Victorian gentlemen who, had they not been in the dress of the time, would have been almost-doubles of the two men who were currently in that same room. The one on the left was small and smiling and wore a moustache and a somewhat mismatched suit (the Victorian equivalent of John's odd taste in jumpers, Sherlock thought without voicing it); the one on the right was tall and stern and topped by a deerstalker not unlike the one Sherlock loved to hate, and though the image was grainy and unclear there was no mistaking the high forehead and distinctive cheekbones.

'It seems we have historical doppelgangers,' he said, not wanting to show that he was as bewildered as John.

'Have you seen their names yet?' asked John in a shaky voice.

Sherlock flipped the photo over, but did not need to, as he had in his heart already guessed. These Victorian gentlemen were somehow them… just in a different time.

'So the pipe…' John began.

'…was one of ours in a past life,' Sherlock finished.

'What are you two talking about?' Mrs Hudson asked then, holding out a hand for the photograph. When she looked upon it her face showed about a hundred expressions all at once, and John and Sherlock would have laughed if they weren't feeling exactly the same way.

'I hope it was mine,' said Sherlock with a slight smile, picking up the pipe and trying to imagine himself smoking it. 'I wonder if it would still light. It's a little blocked, but…'

'Oh, _don't_ , Sherlock dear,' said Mrs Hudson once she had recovered her breath. 'You might break it.'

'I wouldn't have chosen a pipe so fragile,' Sherlock countered a little enigmatically, and went for a match. Whilst he was doing so, John looked at the rest of the papers. Some were just sheets that had signatures on – signatures that were almost unintelligible but which he just knew to be Sherlock's doppelganger's. Just as a dark cloud of musty tobacco smoke began to fill the room – as well as a small sigh of pleasure from within it that John had rarely heard escape Sherlock's mouth – he chanced upon the last paper in the box. This one was another of Sherlock's predictions: a letter, and one that was written in a hand that John knew on sight, for though it wasn't his own – it somehow _was_.

' "My dear Holmes", ' he began to read, and then his voice faltered as he read through the rest of the letter. It was short and stumbling, yet conveyed a deep sadness that left John almost in tears.

'What is it, John dear?' asked Mrs Hudson.

'A letter,' replied John quietly. 'A letter… from the other John Watson to the other Sherlock. I think… I think the other Sherlock… died. He was the man who passed away… And John – the other John – wrote this to him even though he would never…'

Sherlock, at this, started and looked up.

'The thing is…' John swallowed and looked away for a moment. 'It's almost exactly what I would write if…' He stopped himself short. Though his head was bowed, he could feel Sherlock's piercing eyes on him, and Mrs Hudson's sympathetic gaze. The letter fell from his hands and he did not continue.

'How did he die?' asked Sherlock quickly, in a sudden burst that sounded almost akin to panic.

'I don't know,' John murmured. 'It said something about him passing away at…' He squinted at the letter. 'I couldn't quite make it –' His eyebrows shot up towards his hairline. '– out.' He looked up at Sherlock. 'That's got to be a coincidence.'

'What has?'

'He died at Reichenbach. Like the falls in that painting that you've just – how many Reichenbachs are there?'

'I only know of that one,' said Sherlock quietly.

'It must be coincidence,' said John.

'Yes,' muttered Sherlock, before turning so he didn't have to look his friend in the eye.

There was a silence that was broken by Mrs Hudson asking if they could find out who the woman was whom the box belonged to. John nodded, his train of thought dissolving, and began to inspect the box. At last he found a name inscribed into the wood, another name he knew: _Martha Hudson_.

'Apparently it was yours,' he said, and handed the box to Mrs Hudson.

There was another awkward silence.

'So in the late Victorian era,' began Sherlock, 'this house was inhabited by another one of each of us – our historical doppelgangers. This box was compiled by Mrs Hudson after the other Sherlock had died and presumably John had left in his grief.' His eyes sparked just a little. 'The other John was a doctor, and I imagine the other Sherlock was a detective.'

'You can't know that,' noted John.

'It's the only thing I'd ever be,' countered Sherlock.

'It's very intriguing,' said Mrs Hudson then, who had begun to smile indulgently at the thought of their alter egos existing in this very house, more than a hundred years ago. 'I wish we could meet them.'

'Mm. And I wonder if we could find out more about them,' John replied. He turned to Sherlock. 'Are you interested yet?'

'No,' said Sherlock at once.

'What?'

'Well, there's no mystery involved, is there? We've found out all we need to about them, and anything we don't know we can fill in easily, because – well, they're us.' His eyes twinkled. 'Find me a case. I'm bored.'

And John and Mrs Hudson burst out laughing at this typical Sherlock-comment, but at the same time decided that their investigations into their historical doppelgangers weren't quite over yet.


	2. The Book

**Thanks so much for the good response to the first chapter! The first chapter was written before the special was broadcast, and so was naively hopeful about the "actual" existence of a 19th-century Sherlock and John, but I've decided to run with the idea regardless. This chapter is a bit of fun based around the Conan Doyle mystery _A Study in Scarlet_. If you haven't read it, don't worry, there aren't any spoilers; you just need to know that, like most of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, it's told from Dr Watson's point of view.**

* * *

It had seemed like one of those bizarre dreams, and John found that the matter entirely slipped from his mind until he happened to catch a glimpse of the box on the coffee-table in the lounge. He had to admit to being slightly creeped out: after all, it's not often you find out that another you existed in a different century, living a similar life with another version of your friend. His mind refused to accept the photograph: that insane picture that shouldn't have existed. It blew his mind to see his own face on it, though of course half of it was obscured by a moustache and the shadow of the hat his Victorian self wore.

He wondered what life must have been like. Had he, too, been an army doctor? – there had been wars, so many wars, in the 19th century, in Africa and the Middle East chiefly. It would be a singular coincidence if this other John Watson had served in Afghanistan. And had he been just an ordinary medical doctor back in England?

It was these swirling thought processes that motivated him to think about something else or nothing at all, and so he went back to whatever it was he was doing, after taking the precaution to put the jewellery box out of his sight.

When Sherlock returned that evening – John had no idea where he'd been; he was always disappearing like that these days – Mrs Hudson followed him up the stairs, and let herself into 221B without being invited.

'Ooh, you're both home,' she said, excited. 'I have something to show you both.'

'A book,' said Sherlock dully, without turning round.

'Something to do with our doppelgangers?' John sat up, and Mrs Hudson looked impressed: evidently on this occasion John's deductions were more accurate than Sherlock's. It was then a source of irritation for the detective that John was able to guess more about the matter than he was, because John had an active and lively imagination that was prone to delving into the realms of the fantastical, and the doctor had read more unrealistic books than he had. An unfair advantage, he called it, when the business concerned things that shouldn't be possible.

'Yes,' said Mrs Hudson, lifting a plastic bag onto her lap as she sat down; she drew from it a slim hardback, which she handed to John.

' _A Study in Scarlet_ ,' John read from the cover.

Sherlock, who had been leaning back and paying little attention, sat up suddenly.

'By... by John Watson! Mrs Hudson –'

He could not say any more, not quite knowing what was going on, and opened the book to reveal the title page, which again showed him his – his doppelganger's – name and the title of the book, which John thought looked familiar, but which he didn't quite register.

Then he went on to read the first page of the novel or whatever it was ('It's a novel,' Sherlock said then, as if divining his innermost thoughts), and when he had emerged from it his hands were shaking.

'I feel as if this has been set up somehow,' he said indignantly, not wanting to believe what he had read.

Sherlock received the book from him, and read the first page quickly. 'Well, I must say, this John Watson's a better writer than you.'

John glared at him; Sherlock entirely missed his annoyance.

'So in essence,' Sherlock said at length, 'this is the Victorian version of the first mystery we solved together.'

'The _Study in Pink_ ,' cried John in realisation.

'And this beginning is how we – our doppelgangers – met.' He scanned the next few pages with his quick flashing eyes. 'It's just like how we met. Your friend Stamford – agreeing to go halves on rooms – Ha!' and his eyes sparkled. '"Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with",' he read in mild amusement '– well, certain things might have changed. '"Beating the subjects in the dissecting room with a stick to verify how far bruises may be produced after death" – great minds think alike.'

And with that he closed the book and chuckled.

'This should keep you quiet for a bit,' he said vaguely to John, handing the book back. 'Tell me if you find anything interesting. I'm still looking for a case.'

John could not help but stare as Sherlock revealed himself to be singularly uninterested in the incredible matter, and turned to Mrs Hudson instead. 'So I was a novelist in this past life?'

'It seems,' said Mrs Hudson, 'that Sherlock was a detective, like he is now, and you were the Victorian equivalent of his blogger. From what I've managed to find out, your doppelganger had a few stories published in some popular magazines and also in book form, describing the cases the other John and Sherlock solved together. He was quite successful as well, from what I can see.'

'I knew I should have gone for proper publication,' John said, only a little ruefully.

'You need to work on your writing skills first,' Sherlock murmured from the middle of some daydream.

'What do you know about writing?' and then John's eyes fell on a certain line of _A Study in Scarlet_. '"Knowledge of Literature – Nil",' he said, grinning suddenly.

'Let me see that,' demanded Sherlock, snatching the book and looking at the relevant section, which was the other John's character description of the other Sherlock. He raised his eyebrows one after the other, until they looked as if they might escape into his hair.

Here Mrs Hudson and John collapsed into laughter, because they had already read this particular part, which was very strongly focused on the weaknesses of this other Holmes. Sherlock appeared to give up on the paragraph quickly – a shame, because it then went on to describe his strengths – and instead turned the page.

Suddenly he laughed. 'Lestrade ought to read this. He's in it as well... "A sallow, rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow" – I'll tell him you said that.'

' _I_ didn't say that,' protested John.

'How did you describe Lestrade in the blog?' asked Sherlock.

'I just said he was a detective inspector. Ordinary. Clever. Nice,' replied John indignantly.

'Coward,' said Sherlock with a grin. 'What is it with normal people? Nobody ever says what they're really thinking.'

'I can't call Lestrade sallow and rat-faced on the blog!' cried John, though a smile was beginning to tickle the corner of his mouth. 'Even though the other Watson wasn't completely exaggerating,' he finished more quietly.

'And here's you calling my articles "ineffable twaddle",' Sherlock informed him, changing the subject as his eyes skated through the book. 'I presume that's the Victorian equivalent of "utter bl**dy nonsense". It would be nice to meet another John who doesn't swear quite so often,' he added. 'It's so unimaginative of you. An entire dictionary filled with words you could use, and you go for the same few every time.'

'I'd sound bl**dy stupid calling things "ineffable twaddle",' John protested.

'On the contrary, you'd sound distinguished and educated,' Sherlock tried to claim.

'Well, _that's_ ineffable twaddle, at any rate,' John chuckled, and they all fell about laughing once again.

Sherlock, though he had been initially uninterested, seemed to find the book more amusing as time went on, and did not let the others so much as look at it until he had finished it a couple of hours later, when he handed it to John with a smile still lingering on his face.

'I'm bored now,' he informed him in an offhand manner.

John could only sigh and settle down to reading, ignoring the strained faces Sherlock was pulling as he tried to resist the urge to let out his boredom in some destructive activity. At length the detective managed to sit back in his chair and relax with his eyes closed and his hands clasped, and when at last John had finished reading _A Study in Scarlet_ – which had singularly fascinated him with its resemblance to their own life and to the first case they had solved (well, a certain resemblance, at any rate) – he caught sight of his friend meditating. He wondered what he could possibly be thinking about, since that whenever Sherlock was bored he had a tendency not to think about anything at all until another case came along.

At last it was time for dinner, and John roused Sherlock from his trance by shouting to him from the kitchen; and over the meal he asked what Sherlock had been thinking about.

'Oh, just wandering around my mind-palace,' he said. 'Some of it looks distinctly Victorian now.'

'Still having fantasies about living in the Victorian era?' John teased him.

'It would be interesting,' replied Sherlock. 'Anyway, I can, now I've set it all up in my mind;' and though he did not elaborate, John could understand exactly what he was talking about. His mind-palace was an extraordinary place, not just for storing information that might come in useful, but for the preservation of memories, and for the construction of fictional worlds in which Sherlock could spend hours wandering. He wondered what his mind-self got up to in the streets of 19th-century London, riding hansoms over cobbles and smoking a pipe and dealing with mysteries that, though they bore certain similarities to those that they solved in the present day, were different if only because of the time in which they were set. Sherlock had a historical playground, and John did not doubt that he would allow himself to play in it.

'Did you put the book on the shelf?' asked John casually when the meal was finished and he was getting up from his seat.

'Yes,' said Sherlock, his eyes twinkling. 'I filed it under I for Ineffable Twaddle.'

'Sherlock!' said John laughing.

'I'm kidding. It's under W for Watson,' Sherlock corrected himself, but his first statement – that rare thing, an intentional joke from Sherlock – still resounded, and the two friends let the kitchen ring with merry laughter.


	3. The Fall

**I must apologise, because I seem to have delved into the book world without meaning to. If you've read the short story** ** _The Final Problem_** **, then excellent. If you haven't – I must warn you that there are a few spoilers ahead.**

 **This chapter sort of follows on from the previous ones, but is disconnected in that it is set in 1891, and concerns our friends' historical doppelgangers. It's just a bit of backstory that I quite wanted to write. I hope you like it.**

 **I must also apologise that this chapter is rather darker than the other two. I have taken a good deal of inspiration from another of my fics - _The Sound of Silence._**

* * *

The house was dark and empty without the two occupants in it. They'd gone to the Continent, which was a fairly ordinary thing for people to do; however, these were not ordinary people, and their trip was not an ordinary one.

Mrs Hudson was rarely let in on the business of Mr Holmes and his friend Dr Watson, but she knew it to be at once remarkable and dangerous (because, in truth, nothing is ever all that remarkable if it isn't slightly dangerous). She also knew that whatever purpose had driven them to Switzerland was something more risky even than usual, because only a short time ago Mr Holmes had sent her from the house for a day whilst he "welcomed" a visitor who posed a great threat to him, and potentially to everybody else in the vicinity as well. Mrs Hudson had at one point pondered if evacuating the whole of the City of London might not have been a step too far.

She had caught the name Moriarty. She knew a handful of people called Moriarty, most of them Irish, most of them friendly. However, she thought she might have heard the name in the papers, and so had a glance through all of the recent newspapers and books and journals to see if she could locate anyone by that name. The nearest she got was a Professor J. Moriarty, a scientist with a few lesser-known papers to his name. Doubting that she was on the right path, she gave up and left the matter to Sherlock Holmes, trusting that he knew what he was doing.

* * *

They had been away for a week, and Mrs Hudson was starting to worry for them, when there came to the door a haggard-looking John Watson, who brushed into the hallway and up the stairs without so much as a hello to Mrs Hudson – indeed he did not seem to see her. She might have gone after him had she not been struck by the emptiness in his eyes, the red rings around them that told her that he had been crying.

About half an hour later he returned carrying a small bag, and it was with more than a hint of optimism that Mrs Hudson asked him if he was all right. The doctor said nothing audible, though the briefest hint of a humourless smile flickered at the corner of his mouth; then he tipped his hat at her in a brief, respectful gesture, and left the house. Something about his expression then, though quite what she could not place, told her that he might not return.

* * *

So Sherlock Holmes was dead. The newspapers quietly announced the news; a handful of Scotland Yarders and people whom Mrs Hudson recognised as the detective's former clients attended a short, sombre church service in his memory; and 221 Baker Street was plunged into what felt like a cold and clammy darkness.

For the first couple of weeks she didn't dare go into 221B. It seemed almost sacrilegious even to place her hand on the handle that Holmes had so often turned. But eventually it did occur to her that Sherlock Holmes was not the tidiest of men, and she hadn't the least idea what state the flat might be in. She held her breath whilst opening the door, but found that it wasn't as bad as she had thought it might be, and that the main problem was dust. When all else had been and gone, there was always dust, that grey vague approximation of a substance that tried to hide what had come before. A tentative finger crept out, brushed a line of it from one of the books stacked on the floor, revealed a surprisingly bold shade of red.

And she walked around the room, staring without seeing at the fireplace, the bookshelves, the stacks of papers and books – the armchairs, good God, those armchairs. Holmes had chosen them himself, which was surprising, because he didn't really care for furniture, only that there was some, but he had insisted on these particular ones, because he knew he would spend a lot of time in his armchair. Perhaps she had underestimated quite how much time.

But the thing that struck her about Holmes's armchair was that he had left his dressing-gown in it. The blue one. It sat there, moulded to his own shape, looking just like a person – good God, it looked so much like a person, no, a ghost, a shadow of a man.

Mrs Hudson shook her head, bit her lip and turned away so that she didn't have to be reminded of him. Her glance fell onto the fireplace again – which then seemed to lend coldness to the room, where lit it heated it – and at last on the coffee-table.

The table was covered with dust, like everything else, but the piece of paper that lay upon it was somewhat less dusty than the rest, and had evidently been placed there more recently. The most recent visitor had been Dr Watson – and indeed it was his writing upon the paper.

She picked it up gently, held it to the light – saw it to be folded, and that the name written upon it was _Sherlock Holmes_. A letter, then. A letter from Dr Watson to his friend. A letter that he knew would never be read, but had still –

Her hand flew to her mouth and she blinked back a wave of tears. Poor man! Poor dear sweet John Watson, her friend and Holmes's, a wonderful man now reduced to a wreck by – Oh!

And it was at this very moment that it all dawned on her, and though she hadn't known Holmes that well – had anyone, truly? – she fell into Watson's chair and, unrestrainedly, began to cry.

* * *

Watson didn't come back, and Holmes remained present only in the memories of those who had known him, memories that were fading faster than they might have liked. Mrs Hudson left 221B for a long, long while – years, even. Perhaps she still fostered some vain hope that Watson might return, that Holmes might return, indeed, showing his usual aplomb in accomplishing the impossible. It took a long while for her to accept that times had changed and that 221B would not be occupied again. She wouldn't hear the gunshots that had so unceremoniously drawn a V.R. into her beautiful wallpaper. She wouldn't hear their voices, sometimes chatting, occasionally arguing, often speculating. She wouldn't hear them coming and going, she wouldn't hear Holmes's thoughtful pacing, Watson's walk with that slight limp that may or may not have been real. No, silence reigned in 221 Baker Street, that terrible sound of silence that endures even when all other sounds have given up.

And she found that she wanted above everything to remember but to forget, if that was even possible.

Therefore she went upstairs, and somewhat timidly into 221B; she picked up the letter; she picked up one or two other papers; she brought from her own flat a couple of letters he had sent her; she picked up his pipe and tobacco-box, which he had left on the mantelpiece. Then she located an old jewellery-box of hers – a sturdy affair, and locked with a key – and placed all of these things inside it; and, after a quiet moment of reflection, perhaps a prayer, she closed the lid and locked it.

* * *

She put it in the attic. She hadn't often been in the attic, and there wasn't much up there, but it seemed the logical place to place this box that meant so much, out of reach of everyone, of almost all things. When she clambered back down she locked the hatch, and glanced back up at it before heading back downstairs. She wondered whether after she had gone, a couple of decades' time perhaps, the next owners of the house would find the box and wonder whose it had been. It didn't occur to her that it would be a lot longer than that. It most definitely didn't occur to her that those who found the box would be Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.


	4. The Shop

**And once again we're back to the modern day. I have again drawn on** ** _The Sound of Silence_** **, partly because we begin in a similar situation, and partly because it makes sense to do so when I am presenting an alternative timeline to what happened in that story. I don't wish to self-advertise but you are very welcome to read it. ;)**

 **I am also going to have to apologise again for spoilers for the short story** ** _The Empty House_** **.**

* * *

Two years.

Two long years.

Mrs Hudson went quietly through to her little living-room with a cup of tea carefully balanced on a saucer, and sat down, sipping at it, finding it slightly too hot still, and so resorting just to sitting and thinking.

It was two years to the day since that call. She had used her favourite song for the ringtone, and she hadn't been able to listen to it since, not after it had broken an uneasy silence and announced the news she had never wanted to hear – the news even her nightmares had never managed to match.

He was dead. Sherlock Holmes was dead.

She had mourned at first, of course, everyone had. John had left and hadn't returned, nor even attempted to make contact with her. She had seen Lestrade a couple of times, and he was a truly broken man, not just because he had been utterly ridiculed for taking Sherlock on. And at any rate he didn't deserve such treatment.

Sherlock had committed suicide. It had been so much more shocking even than was natural, because it had been so at odds with his bright, sparkling, living, enduring character, and because his "note" – a horrid phone call to John – had contained information that Mrs Hudson couldn't, _wouldn't_ , believe.

Apparently Sherlock had claimed to be a fake, not a genius, just a fake who had used trickery to reach some twisted self-aim. And when it dawned on him what chaos he had caused, what upset, he hadn't been able to live with it.

It didn't _fit_ somehow. And there were more than a few people out there who claimed that he was still alive, that somehow he had faked his suicide – ha! That was ludicrous, wasn't it? John had seen him fall. He had seen him –

The sight had utterly broken him and Mrs Hudson did not doubt what he had seen. Sherlock Holmes was dead. Gone. Forever. Only his name remained, and it had become infamous, blackening his very self.

He _couldn't_ have been a fake. Mrs Hudson knew he'd been a genius. Hadn't he? Of course he had!

Then why –

It was useless thinking on it. He'd had some reason for killing himself, a reason that would perhaps only ever be known unto himself. He was gone, and she had to accept that.

But, oh! how terrible it was still to remember that day, still to remember –

* * *

The little curiosity shop was a favourite of Mrs Hudson's, and she often went in when she passed that way, if only to admire the small figurines behind the dirty window that were probably worth a small fortune, to run her finger over the old books that lined the shelves, to exchange a snatch of slightly surreal conversation with the eccentric old man behind the counter. She hadn't been in here in a while. Indeed, it brought back a few unfavourable memories, as it had been the place where she had bought _A Study in Scarlet_ – still Sherlock and John's laughs when they had read and discussed it came back to her, yet now they seemed distant and overwhelmingly sad somehow. And there hadn't been a long while between that and what John called the Fall...

But she needed to get back to her normal life, and she hadn't seen the man at the counter for a while, so she went in and greeted him, wondering if anyone except her ever spoke to him. She too now understood loneliness and she pitied him.

Her gaze went straight to the books. She had a thing about old books. They were pretty and, though she felt as if she would sound odd admitting it, she quite liked their musty smell. And there were occasionally among them some fascinating gems. Like _A Study in Scarlet_.

She already had the Dickens novels that lined the top shelf, or else she might have bought them. She admired a row of books about flowers and wild animals that had the most beautiful coloured plates. Then her eyes travelled down to W, and she was astonished to see the name John Watson.

It hadn't been there the last time she'd come – evidently it was a recent addition. Perhaps it was a different John Watson. She tentatively slid it from among the other novels, and found it to be a fairly slim volume called _The Empty House_.

She opened it carefully, and found half of the pages to be still uncut, but enough of them were intact for her to read that familiar name _Dr John Watson_ , and not doubt that it was the same man as before.

The first page began with an account in the familiar very-Victorian prose of some murder, and Mrs Hudson smiled faintly. John – her John – was a very different writer to this one, yet similar, and she could never quite put her finger on what made them similar. Perhaps it was their tendency to romanticise the stories they told.

She went onto the second paragraph, and then her eyes fell upon a phrase that made her draw a breath.

 _The death of Sherlock Holmes..._

A sudden morbid curiosity made her keep reading, skimming over Watson's account of some other incident that didn't seem to relate to anything, and arrived at last at the most surprising part of the tale, and one that Watson himself didn't expect: Holmes's reappearance.

 _When I turned again Sherlock Holmes was standing smiling at me across my study table..._

She nearly dropped the book. So this Holmes, too, had died. But this Holmes had – well, he'd come back from the dead.

And the surprise that had so struck her at first left her in a long sigh. It was a ludicrous idea that had occurred to her. The two Sherlocks were not the same, and did not live lives that precisely mirrored each other. This damned book had set aflame a vain hope she had had – that Sherlock was indeed still alive, and that the conspiracy theorists were right. Yet he _couldn't_ be...

Therefore as anger began to bubble up inside of her she made to replace the book; but something stopped her, and made her buy it, and go home then to cut the rest of the pages and so read it.


	5. The Man

**I've just been having a bit of fun writing this chapter, so I hope you enjoy it. It draws very heavily on _The Empty House_ \- do you know, I should have made this a crossover, I'm sorry. The parts in italics are from that brilliant Conan Doyle short story, so I cannot lay claim to them, much as I wish I could - and you are warned that there are MAJOR SPOILERS for that story in this chapter.**

* * *

She didn't show John _The Empty House_. Of course she didn't. She didn't even mention it to him. It had upset her, she could say that much. Yet she could not deny that it has fascinated her, and that it would keep returning to her thoughts long after she had resigned it to the bookshelf, next to _A Study in Scarlet_ , and alongside a good many other books that brought back mixed memories.

John – yes, indeed, John. It was two and a half years since he had left the house with scarcely a word to his landlady. Ever since then he had been worryingly silent – not a visit, not a phone call, not even a text. Nothing, except a single letter addressed to Sherlock that she had ended up leaving on the coffee-table in 221B: she didn't want to think about what he must have written in it.

And he surprised her by turning up out of the blue, a hesitant smile about his lips – and there was another thing about his lips too, a rugged greying moustache that didn't suit him in the slightest. It made her think of his Victorian doppelganger somehow. But yes – John had changed, changed perhaps more than she might have guessed, and though she was delighted to see him, it was with a sigh of something akin to regret that she welcomed him in, a sigh she had to hide.

They conversed briefly. It transpired that John had met a woman whom he was planning on marrying. Mrs Hudson couldn't deny being a little surprised – a woman, indeed! – but congratulated him warmly; he promised that he would keep in touch; and then, for a second time, he left. And this time it was certain that he wouldn't be coming back, not to live here.

Never had the title _The Empty House_ been more applicable to current events. As the door closed behind John, Mrs Hudson's eyes fell on the book on her shelf, and she smiled sadly, as if she could not quite believe what had just happened.

* * *

 _I struck against an elderly, deformed man, who had been behind me, and I knocked down several books which he was carrying... I endeavoured to apologise for the accident, but it was evident that these books which I had so unfortunately maltreated were very precious objects in the eyes of their owner. With a snarl of contempt he turned upon his heel, and I saw his curved back and side-whiskers disappear among the throng..._

'Can I help you with anything, sir?' asked an unnecessarily irritating French accent at John's side. John waved dismissively, his eyes still in front of him, not even casting a glance at the black-suited waiter leaning over him, and asked for a bottle of champagne.

As is the wont of waiters, the man began to list the merits of certain vintages, and pointed out his favourites on the menu, whilst John managed to ignore everything he was saying, seeming to become more nervous with every passing second. The woman across from him watched him in mild amusement.

The waiter said something about the quality of surprise in a certain champagne. John shrugged dismissively: 'Surprise me.'

The waiter murmured something under his breath and turned on his heel, before disappearing through the crowded restaurant.

 _I had not been in my study five minutes when the maid entered to say that a person desired to see me. To my astonishment it was my strange old book collector, his sharp, wizened face peering out from a frame of white hair, and his precious volumes, a dozen of them at least, wedged under his right arm._

He was steaming unsteadily towards the moment, and he hoped that his red cheeks weren't too much of a giveaway. Did he mean to surprise Mary? – perhaps. But the girl was intelligent. God, she probably already knew what he meant to ask, and was just humouring him with that smile, that naïve twinkling gaze. Was he taking too long over it? – How was he supposed to know? He'd never done this before – never asked someone to –

The wine-waiter appeared. He thrust a bottle under John's nose, forcing him to read the label. He nearly read it out to Mary, such was his lapse in concentration. God, not _now_...

 _'_ _With five volumes you could just fill that gap on the second shelf. It looks untidy, does it not?...'_

'It has all the qualities of the old, with some colours of the new – like a gaze from a crowd of strangers... suddenly one is staring into the face of an old friend...'

 _I moved my head to look at the cabinet behind me..._

He looked over the top of the bottle, tried to ignore it, tried to catch his previous train of thought...

 _When I turned again Sherlock Holmes was standing smiling at me across my study table. I rose to my feet... and then it appears I must have fainted._

When he turned again a familiar face was looking down at him, smiling. He rose to his feet, shaking all of a sudden, starting to come over all faint.

 _'_ _Holmes!' I cried. 'Is it really you? Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that awful abyss?'_

His mouth formed silently the word _How_? Mary stared, asking John what was wrong, what was going on.

'Well,' said Sherlock Holmes, blushing a little, 'short version: not dead.'

* * *

 _'_ _I came over at once to London, called in my own person at Baker Street, threw Mrs Hudson into violent hysterics...'_

She had gone to re-read _The Empty House_ without quite knowing why, still pondering as she did over the re-appearance of this Holmes. His explanation of his survival had been plausible. After all, he had gone over a waterfall, not a building, and there are many irregularities to waterfalls. And nobody had seen him fall. Not like when –

She was just going to replace it when she heard a noise on the front step. She didn't often get visitors these days, and she got up, perhaps waiting for the bell to ring or a knock to resound, when she realised that the handle was being turned, the keyhole wrenched. A gasp sprang to her throat – someone was trying to break in!

In the blink of an eye she went through the kitchen, picked up the first thing that her hand fell upon – a frying-pan – and emerged in the hallway just as Sherlock Holmes came through the door, throwing her into violent hysterics.

* * *

 _'_ _I found myself in my old armchair in my own old room, and only wishing that I could have seen my old friend Watson in the other chair which he had so often adorned...'_


	6. The Same

**Thanks to everyone still following this story! I have officially designated it a crossover, so as to avoid lengthy apologies for each chapter. This chapter features both incarnations of our protagonists. I hope you will enjoy it; do let me know what you think. :)**

* * *

( **Victorian incarnations)**

Sherlock Holmes could scarcely describe himself as a busy man, and it was at times like these, sitting in his armchair with his arms loosely at his sides, his thoughts almost entirely blank, that one could almost call him lazy, if one did not know him. Even Mrs Hudson, who knew him, scolded him for his inactivity between cases – "There are jobs to be done, I can't do everything", "Why don't you cook this evening? Come on, Mr Holmes, you need to eat", "Have you ever read Dickens?" – and, now that he was back and very much in demand by Scotland Yard, she didn't much like to see him sitting around doing nothing, especially when she thought he ought to be spending time with the friends he had so dismayed following his supposed death.

But she could not say a bad word against him, not now, and so kept her thoughts to herself, sitting in the chair opposite his – Watson's chair, Holmes noted with just a hint of annoyance. They regarded each other with as much affection as was due at that time, and for a long while were silent, merely revelling in being in each other's company once again. Sherlock Holmes wouldn't before now have classed Mrs Hudson as a friend. He didn't tend to class many people at all as a friend. But he had to admit that he liked her very much, and that she must consider him a friend, even if that wasn't reciprocated.

At length he emerged from the daydream that so absorbed him, and said: 'What have you done with my second-best pipe?'

'Second-best?' asked Mrs Hudson distractedly.

'I took my first best with me,' Holmes shrugged. 'My second-best I left on the mantelpiece... You've done something with it.'

Mrs Hudson furrowed her brow for a moment. It seemed a long time ago now. 'It's in a box. In the attic...'

Holmes stared at her. 'Why?'

This particular question always surprised Mrs Hudson when it came from Holmes's lips. Usually he was the one doing the explanations, except in rare times like these, when it was about the relationships between humans and their fellows.

'I didn't want to...' The words failed her. 'I thought it would be...' She sighed. 'Oh, Mr Holmes, consider it merely a gesture that I thought of as appropriate at the time, a gesture that cannot be explained in words.'

Perhaps Holmes frowned at her then, but he did not pester her. 'Can I rescue it?'

'I thought it ought to stay there,' said Mrs Hudson quickly. 'I don't want to be reminded –'

'Perhaps,' agreed Holmes, and this agreement surprised her. 'Perhaps my second-best pipe doesn't suit me any more. Am I a different man? Perhaps.' And with that he disappeared back into his contemplation.

He was a curious man, Mrs Hudson thought, as she regarded him with the affectionate eye of a mother. He claimed to have changed, and yet he was more like himself than ever, frank, good-humoured, a little childish. He even sat in the same way in his armchair. No matter what he might have thought, he would never change. Not really. He would always be Sherlock Holmes, the same Sherlock Holmes, even as everything else changed around him.

* * *

 **(Modern incarnations)**

Sherlock Holmes was settling into his armchair, clad in the warm blue dressing-gown that he had missed greatly despite himself, when he heard a knock at the door; recognising it as the eager and yet slightly tentative knock of Mrs Hudson, he invited her in, and beamed as he caught the smell of tea emanating from the tray in her hands. He thanked her with a cheeriness and politeness that was somewhat unusual for him, and as he sipped his tea he studied her absent-mindedly before saying:

'Is that another of the other John's books?'

'What? – Oh, yes.' Mrs Hudson put the tray down to reveal the book she had been precariously clutching: _The Empty House_. 'I thought I would show you it. You might find the beginning interesting.'

A smile played about Sherlock's lips as he read the title, which very quickly made him think of The Empty Hearse, that madcap group of conspiracy nuts who had turned out more correct than even they might have thought. He wondered if it was just coincidence. Then he opened the book and began to read it: and, absorbed, he did not stop until he had finished the entirety of the short story.

'It's curious, isn't it?' said Mrs Hudson at once as he placed the book on the coffee-table.

'I suppose,' said Sherlock.

'You're so _similar_ ,' she went on.

'Well, we would be,' Sherlock commented. 'We're the same person.'

'You think so?'

'I _know_ so. I can tell if I'm reading about myself.'

'Don't you think it's just _remarkable_ , though?' asked Mrs Hudson, unable to contain the excitement she felt at such a bizarre matter. 'That you and John existed in the 19th century, and led very similar lives?'

'History repeats itself,' said Sherlock vaguely.

They were silent for a while: Mrs Hudson was by now used to the long breaks in any conversation with Sherlock – either he would run out of things to say, or get distracted by something in his mind palace and not emerge for minutes, hours, sometimes even days. At last Mrs Hudson, changing the subject, said: 'Have you been to the supermarket like I asked?'

'Supermarket?' Sherlock said in a naïvely ignorant fashion – Mrs Hudson couldn't ever tell if he was putting it on.

'Oh, Sherlock,' Mrs Hudson sighed. 'I asked you to get some things from the supermarket. You'll need to go down before dinner, otherwise you won't have anything to eat.'

'Last time I went to the supermarket,' Sherlock said, thinking for a moment, 'was in Serbia. I was hunting a gang member. I cornered him in the frozen food aisle.'

'What did the customers think?' asked Mrs Hudson.

'I don't know. One of them fainted, and another ran off screaming,' Sherlock told her. 'Though I think that might have been my beard,' he added, and a twitch at the corner of his mouth told her that this was an attempt at a joke.

'Well, you won't find gang members in Tesco's,' Mrs Hudson assured him.

'I'm not going _there_ ,' said Sherlock darkly. 'I haven't been since I got arrested for shooting their self-checkout. I had a good reason,' he protested a moment later. *

At the recollection of this incident, Mrs Hudson burst out laughing. 'Oh, Sherlock,' she said, 'never change.'

Sherlock too smiled; then he nodded towards _The Empty House_ , and said simply: 'I'm not sure I've changed since the 19th century. And I'm not planning on doing. I like being Sherlock Holmes.'

And they both grinned.

* * *

*For the full story concerning this incident, see my oneshot _Home Alone_.


End file.
